


i can't wait to go home

by DA830



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, M/M, Songfic, bittersweet reflections, long-distance pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-08 16:33:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11650461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DA830/pseuds/DA830
Summary: You can remember, but memories will only ever be memories.





	i can't wait to go home

**Author's Note:**

> Title and song lyrics from Ed Sheeran's "Castle on the Hill".  
> From the moment I heard the song, I thought of this beautiful pairing. I'm fandom trash. yes  
> The song is a masterpiece. Go listen to it and think of kagehina.  
> Thank you to the two people for proofreading/editing - you know who you are.

_ i miss the way you make _

_ me feel _

_ it’s real _

 

Lift, move, drop. Lift, move drop. The methodical routine of packing is nothing new, rather something he needs to get over with.

The stack of beige boxes slowly reduces in size until the last one is sitting at his feet. He bends down, forgetting to lift with his knees, and picks it up. He feels a prick in his back with a grunt and promptly drops it.

_ Hope there’s nothing valuable in there, _ he thinks, too late, and opens it to inspect the damage.

The soft flaps open up to reveal more of his clothes that had been in his drawer for three years. He digs through the mess, hoping to withdraw his hand free of blood.

He gropes around for a few more moments until finally hitting a solid surface. He grasps for a hold and draws it out, spilling some of his shirts over the box in the process.

He moves to pick up the articles before they get soiled on the sun-kissed pavement, but stops mid-grab when he sees what he’s holding.

A picture frame, glass dusty with age, wood yellowed with wear, and then he needs to sit down.

One look at his happy smile is all it takes to bring him back.

Back to a simpler time, back to when he didn’t know any of the answers, back to a time of screaming down hills and evening walks and  _ tosses _ .

He hasn’t seen any of the other faces in the photo in forever,  _ forever,  _ and suddenly he feels empty. He shifts in place, but the feeling persists.

He can feel his heart pounding, something is building in his throat and now it’s difficult to swallow the spit in his mouth, but his gaze is still transfixed on the photo.

His hand in the photo is coming from the side, reminding him that it was a selfie he’d taken, but there’s no need for a reminder because he relives the moment anyways.

Sugawara-senpai’s soft grin, there to cheer the team up, Daichi-san’s subtle happy smile, a source of familiarity and comfort. Even though they both look worried on the camera paper, their smiles are clear as day, pulling him farther into the world in the photo.

Nishinoya, Noya-senpai and his little puff of blonde hair, and Tanaka-senpai with his trademark smirk, roiling with boundless energy - for a second, his ears are filled with shouts of “SHOUYOU!”, and he turns around, but all there is to meet him is the empty summer air.

Asahi-san, just looking at his little circlet and bashful smile hurts, physically hurts. All the late nights of sore arms and training to  _ beat _ him, resolving to become his team’s ace, it makes his breath catch when the intensity of his resolve suddenly comes back, for what, he doesn’t know.

Narita, Kinoshita, Ennoshita, he wipes his thumb over their part of the photo, clearing their relaxed faces of dust. Ever-present, making Karasuno’s atmosphere whole.

Yamaguchi and Tsukishima, looking at these two hits him the hardest yet. Summer days, soft light casting shadows on tables with workbooks spread out. Tsukishima’s condescending smirk makes him want to hit the blonde, but he knows his chances are long over.

Shimizu-senpai, and...Yachi-san. She’s there, beside him, a look of exhilaration in her eyes as if she  _ still _ can’t believe she’s here with them. He can almost smell her scent of open fields and lemon shampoo and late nights studying together, but it’s quickly snatched away by the gentle breeze.

And...the only one who looks agitated in the photo. His grumpy stare, the way his eyebrows furrow when he disapproves of his partner’s antics, but that little hint of a smile worming its way out of that cold exterior.

He finally lets the tears fall, wetting the frame and the glass and the ground - the feel of the ball hitting his hand is a little  _ too real _ , it’s something he hasn’t felt for years.

All the way from their last goodbye, he’s lost sight of the view from the top, forgotten how it felt to really be invincible, how it felt to  _ fly _ .

He casts his blurry vision to the sky in desperation, the open, endless expanse; two words come to him, white against black against blue:

_ Fly high. _

When he was sixteen, he broke his leg for the first time. Attempting to retrieve a ball from high up in a willow tree, courtesy of a rare over-volley. Falling badly.

He’d stared up dazedly, registering the extreme pain but feeling it in the distance somehow. The ball dropped down from the high branches, swaying against the backdrop of bright blue, then Yachi and Yamaguchi’s hard panic, Kageyama rushing to his side, taking his hand roughly, probably to check his pulse (but for  _ what _ reason, he didn’t know, you were supposed to splint the leg, weren’t you?), and being taken in strong arms to a car, then to a hospital. Tsukishima had carried him.

He missed it. The club, the team,  _ his  _ team, the meat buns after practice, the love letters Kageyama received annually, the sweet taste of victory on the court, his weekend job at the local animal shelter, the bottles they used for accuracy, zooming across mountain roads, Yamaguchi’s cute little ponytail in third year that made Tsukki blush, being cared for by Kageyama’s soft side while stuck in a cast, long bus rides to Tokyo, summer afternoons in the park, Kageyama’s super-complicated tosses, Kageyama’s powerful jump serve, Kageyama grabbing his hair in a fit of frustration, Kageyama’s rare smile, Kageyama, Kageyama, Kageyama -

His partner.

His other half.

The tears don’t stop now that they’re coming from the heart.

These are the people that raised him. He’s broken his heart losing and repaired it a thousand times over, but he was younger then.

He misses waking up in warm arms, misses confounding spectators with their freak quick,  _ their  _ freak quick, misses those rough lips against his, and he longs for the feeling of knowing that they’re together.

They haven’t played in so long.

They’d known it wouldn’t last forever, that it  _ had _ to end sometime, but he’s still here, caught up in the last shreds of his feelings, so why?

Then he remembers graduation.

Goodbye third years, goodbye second years, and lastly, goodbye first years.

Strangely, he feels no more need to cry. The emptiness still surrounds him,  _ is _ him, but it’s a  _ satisfying _ kind of empty.

A scene he hasn’t revisited for a while.

Sturdy arms had enveloped him, and more had been exchanged between the two without words than any other time.

“I’ll never forget you.”

He let Kageyama go, but he’d never forget.

 

_ i was younger then, take me back to when i _

 

_ found my heart and broke it here _

 

_ made friends and lost them through the years _

 

_ and i’ve not seen the roaring fields in so long, _

 

_ i know, i’ve grown _

 

_ but i can’t wait _

 

_ to go home _

**Author's Note:**

> visit me on tumblr @da830 !


End file.
